Monthly Archives: March 2015

I first came across his work while writing an essay about reality and fiction in photography. His photographs are a masterpiece of a visual manipulation. They balance on the borderline of illusion and lies, blending science and art. They are very convincing and realistically looking. He clearly put a lot of effort in inventing his creations, justifying its feasibility with the scientific journals, museum displays and interviews with archeologists involved. His photos are fully staged and shot on film, what makes his work even more impressive. This is one of the photographs from the series “Herbarium” (1984), which is one of his earliest work. It’s been built with a plant and animal mater, creating a surreal object resembling of a actual plant. It’s a very minimalistic, still life photograph, with a beautiful, soft lighting and shades. It looks like taken straight from the botanical book. Another on of his scientific looking series, “Sirens” caused a lot of controversy amongst teachers, accusing him of amending the fossil records and making it hard to tech children about the evolution. Siren fossils have been built in the southern France and justified by testimonials of the geologist and priest Jean Fontana (5). Fontcuberta work is a fantastic, inspirational piece of the surreal art. It makes us to re-think everything we know and be more careful with believing in what we see. He also proofs, that with a bit of hard work, everything is possible and we as photographers, can send a very powerful message through our work.

My work is very much inspired by this great artist. I have not only created my own, archeological findings, but also trying to send a strong message about our bad habits and attitude towards the environment. I am also going to create a Latin names for my object to increase the feel of its scientific background.

The Essence of Fashion was a brief set for UCLAN photography and fashion students (4), set by Layla Sailor. Students were paired up and had to created and then photograph a jelly inspired by the couture collection. Each jelly contained selection of object related to the story behind the Spring/Summer 2014 designer collection. All of them had to be photographed in the studio, on the pastel background. Dolce & Gabbana SS14, Greek coins, red and white flowers, blue dye, gold ribbon Channel SS 14, Pearls, Lace, Lego

Baleciaga SS14, Water, Gelatine, Purple Flowers

Dior SS14, Letters, Beads, Black Dye, Flowers, Playing Cards

All of these images are great in terms of composition, lighting and idea development, but I think the Balenciaga is the best one. Pure simplicity, well composed and nicely lit. I think jelly is an interesting way of ‘holding’ things together or in certain position and it’s worth experimenting with. It could be a cheaper substitute for resin, it also has more texture, which would make images more interesting.

Task: Experiment with suspending objects in orange dyed jelly and photograph with a macro lens.

Mo Devlin is well known for his series of photographs of flowers suspended in ice. They are very detailed, perfectly lit close ups of the beautiful, frozen compositions. Some of them are easily recognizable, others look very abstract, devilish even.

In one of his interviews(3), photographer reveals how he photographs the objects, which is a very useful tip: “For all of the shots I used a Nikon D800E with 60mm VR Nikkor lens. Most often I utilize a polarizing filter. The puck, for the most part, is suspended over my stainless kitchen sink (a perfect reflector) and lit from below with one or two Nikon SB-910 flash units. The light is diffused with a Gary Fong light sphere and directed either up or at an angle through the bottom. A piece of opaque Plexiglas holds the puck. I use two or three Nikon SB-200 kicker speed lights alongside or above the puck.” What I really like about those images is how clear and sharp they are. Thanks to the bright lights and various reflectors, Devlin was able to photograph them at the very low shutter speed (1/320) and a very high aperture of f/30 – f/40. Colours are vivid, texture is very clear, almost 3D like, I particularly like the air bubbles. These photos (4) are fantastic and very inspiring.